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Dream of political stability

IT is often believed that engineering political stability is the solution to a nation’s economic and security challenges. The idea of this so-called stability is used to justify the suppression…

Political market

THIS story is about a country where the elites completely control politics and the economy. The elites are disproportionately overrepresented in parliament as money literally buys votes. The elites also…

Taxation in Pakistan: taxing the untaxed elites

Chris Matthews’s famous quote “Paying tax is not a punishment. It’s a responsibility”. Most developed countries with a simple and efficient tax system enjoyed higher GDP growth, investment and employment…

Fixing politics by non-political means

Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a September 2006 coup and subsequently convicted of corruption, is back in the country after years in exile. His party…

The political is all personal

The political economy of Pakistan is shaped by a complex interplay of formal rules and informal deals among elites. It has become important to explore the role of political connections,…

Search for a political settlement

Three years ago – on May 6, 2018 – I barely survived an assassination attempt on my life as the interior minister of the country. Although my bullet wounds have…

Women and political inequality

GENDER inequality takes a variety of forms in Pakistan, but a fundamental one — and one whose rectification may help address all other variants as well — is political inequality.…